Hermione Granger: Who's the Monster Now?
by pixileanin
Summary: Reworked for Levana's 'Stop Shop and Rework It' Challenge, June, 2018. Welcome to my (slightly AU) Dramione Deconstruction fic. This was written for people like me, who don't think the ship can work without the addition of vampires. If you're a Dramione fan, you will probably hate this.
1. Chapter 1: The Victim

Thank you to my all-star beta readers who caught all kinds of things before I posted this! Poppunkpadfoot, facingthenorthwind, Unwritten Curse and Aya Diefair, you are awesome!

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Chapter 1: The Victim

 _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry …_

The words ran through her like a senseless mantra.

Hermione struggled to manage the strap of the purse as she one-handedly attempted to pull out her wallet. Her hand hung limply at her side, stiff and gnarled with black streaks running up her forearm where the curse had hit, darkening her veins. She couldn't feel her fingers. She couldn't hold a wand. Her hand had become a useless appendage, and it had destroyed her magic.

As a witch, she used to carry around an expanding wallet that easily slipped into her pocket, but now she had to do it the Muggle way. Grappling with a large bag that was supposed to be slung across her shoulder, she reached in to find the credit card to pay for her taxi. All of these movements, sitting in the back of the yellow cab, hefting around a large handbag, and fiddling with the flaps of the wallet, were foreign to her. Forgetting how to do all of it was probably the wrong way to put it, since she hadn't exactly learned how to do any of this in the first place.

Being an adult was hard. Being an adult in the exact opposite way in which she'd dreamed, where all the training and hardship and loss and sacrifice had been for the good of everyone around her… everyone except for herself… was heartbreaking.

A year ago, she could handle anything and change things on a whim. Bra strap too tight? Hemline too low? Breath needed freshening? All the little issues of life could be charmed away with a thought. The purse was supposed to be her focus of transition into her new life. Instead of the wizard's pouch and the long, flowing robes with jeans and a blouse underneath, she was stuck in fussy Muggle-looking office attire and two inch pumps.

The taxi driver's icy stare through the rear view mirror let her know that she was taking too long. He tapped on the gas a few times, revving the engine. As she leaned forward with the purse in her lap, the charge card slipped and fell on her right side, sliding between the seat and the floor.

She cursed and twisted her body around so she could pick it up with her left hand - straining against the seatbelt. She couldn't feel around for it with the gnarled fingers of her right hand – firstly, there was no control, secondly, all five digits were numb.

The taxi driver was looking at her like she was an idiot. Hermione fixed her gaze on the seat, ignoring the inferior feelings that swelled up inside of her. Her brain wasn't broken. Her magic was. Struggling and grunting, she finally grasped the edge of the card with the fingers of her good hand and lifted it triumphantly into the air.

"Here it is!" she said in an exaggerated, chirpy tone while handing it over to the driver, who sighed heavily and swiped it against his machine.

The machine chirped back, and Hermione retrieved her card, stuffed it into the open bag – not in her wallet because that would take too long – and began the next task: exiting the vehicle.

She struggled once more with the taxi door, claiming a small victory when the latch popped open and she got out of the car on her own.

The taxi driver grumbled, "You could have asked for help instead of wasting my time," but she was paying for his time, so she didn't really see how it mattered.

Physically, it wasn't really a big deal. She had improved over the last six weeks, managing to undo buttons and write with her off-hand. But the point was, as a witch, she shouldn't have to use a microwave to heat up her water, or carry around a large, hefty bag that made her shoulders ache at the end of the day… or even take a taxi to Merlin-knew-where, because she was no longer capable of apparition.

Her therapist's words kept bouncing around inside her head. " _Embrace who you are. Set aside your expectation and just do what you can. Know that it's enough."_

How was she supposed to forget about everything she used to be capable of and pretend that _this_ was the way she was supposed to be, forever?

Young Hermione Granger hadn't been born with magic. She'd been an ordinary girl born to ordinary, intelligent parents who lived in an ordinary, wonderless world. They had taught her a lot of things: work hard, study hard, and be excellent at whatever she did.

Teenaged Hermione Granger had been granted an unusual gift – the ability to wield magic and attend the most prestigious Wizarding School in England. She applied herself studiously and had been called the "brightest witch of her age". When darkness threatened to conquer them, she and her friends had used their magic to thwart it. In a war meant to enslave the weak and put ultimate power into the hands of a tyrant, they had saved both the Wizarding and the Muggle worlds.

She remembered the stinging sensation during the battle and the way that she ignored it until they had run out of things to fight against. She also remembered the way her arm ached for weeks afterwards, and how people kept telling her to give it time, to let it heal on its own. For a year, she took pain potions to mask the discomfort, and then she started losing feeling in her fingertips. By the time the Mediwitches had started taking her injury seriously, Hermione had lost the ability to use her wand. Whatever the curse had been, it had crippled her wand hand and stripped her of her abilities until finally, she had become practically useless at magic. Compared to what she had been, _what she should have become by now_ , she was a mere shadow of her abilities.

When the Mediwitches' promises to find a cure ran dry, the curse continued to eat away at her, until all she had left was a small spark enough to warm her morning coffee – and sometimes, not even that.

People who 'helped',or thought they were helping, wove in and out of her days, picking her up when she fell and providing for her when she couldn't provide for herself.

Hermione straightened her entirely impractical Muggle business outfit in the red glow of the taxi's disappearing tail lights.

"I got out of the taxi on my own," she muttered to herself, and then promptly dropped her purse and had to stoop to pick it up, wobbling on her heels on the uneven pavement. She made a face to no one in particular, just to make herself feel better.

Hermione stared at the metal warehouse door in front of her, searching for a sign of the physical address, hoping that the taxi driver hadn't just dumped her out here randomly just to get rid of her. She steeled herself against the niggling doubt that this was the wrong place at the wrong time. Knowing what she did about the marginalized magical communities within the wizarding world, this was exactly the sort of place they would choose – somewhere to hide themselves among the Muggles – somewhere the Ministry of Magic wouldn't think to look because of the extreme lack of anything magical about the place.

Ahh… there was the address – a small metal plaque that read "Warehouse #3".

Hermione might have lost her magic from the curse, but she could still feel it in the air around her when it was present. There was a distinct lack of it where she stood, which meant that, either her therapist had written the address down wrong, or these people were so scared that they had to exist completely outside of their natural habitat.

" _Get over your loss by helping those who are worse off than yourself."_

All the 'less than's' and 'should haves' crowded her mind, and she had to steel herself to shake them away. Her therapist insisted that helping those less fortunate than herself would keep the dark thoughts away. These people needed something that Hermione could give them.

Right now, she had a job to do. Which she was very good at. Stellar. An expert liaison between the Ministry of Magic and other entities who deserved representation, magic or no.

Maybe her condition made her even better at it than she'd been before. Empathy was a great tool, and she used it well. It was one of the only things she had left.

But as she stood in this alley with broken lamplights and threatening shadows, Hermione had to wonder if she'd ended up in the right place, or if her life had taken a swift turn and dumped her out alone on a deserted road to nowhere.

She knocked on the warehouse door resolutely. "Hello? Is anyone in there?"

The metal door slid open. Hermione stepped inside, wishing that she could light her wand… wishing that she'd brought her wand, or even a torch to ward off the darkness. Even though it was a useless piece of wood to her now, she could at the very least appear dangerous holding it.

A lithe figure stepped out of the darkness, holding a lone candle. Her face was hidden behind long tresses of hair hanging below her shoulders.

"You're just in time," the thin woman said.

Relieved, Hermione nodded. "My name—"

"We know who you are," the woman said. Then she smiled, and Hermione saw a flash of pointed white.

The woman had fangs.

In her short but very impressive two year (barring some recovery time in St. Mungo's) career in the Ministry of Magic, Hermione had bargained for werewolf rights, freed house elves, and petitioned for goblins to own wands. But vampires were an entirely different matter. This was going to be difficult.

She ventured further into the warehouse, fully aware of the ominous shadows around her, thinking that maybe her ex, a newly minted Auror, had been right about not coming alone. But it was too late for that. She had to make the best of the situation as it stood.

"Everyone deserves a chance for equal representation." That was her platform, and she was going to stand by it. "If I would have known who you were, I would have prepared better documentation for you."

The woman's smile didn't change. "If you knew who we were," she said carefully, "you wouldn't have come."

A loud ' _bang'_ made her jump. Someone had closed the warehouse door. Someone else had come up from behind her. She jerked her arm away from something that brushed her arm. Suddenly, there were hands, everywhere.

"Wait! Let me _go_!"

Hermione felt a sharp sting on the back of her neck. Her tight Muggle skirt did nothing to help her balance, and she fell to the ground.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the thin woman said above Hermione's screams, "dinner is served."


	2. Chapter 2: The Ex

Chapter 2: The Ex

When Hermione stumbled through her front door, bleary-eyed, fuzzy-brained and not exactly sure how the meeting had ended or how she'd ended up at home, she found an _irate Ronald Weasley_ pacing in her kitchenette.

"Hermione!" He practically leapt over the stool by the counter and ran at her. His angry face morphed into something relieved while he scrutinized her from every angle.

"Everyone was so worried, and they sent me over to make sure you were okay. You _are_ okay, aren't you?"

"I'm fine, just very tired," she said, fending off his arms that reached around her to see if her limbs were still intact. "I don't know what the big deal is," she continued, somewhat miffed at his intrusion into her home.

He'd had a key since forever, and he kept doing things to give her reasons to ask for it back, but she just hadn't ever gotten around to it yet. His 'everyone' sounded an awful lot like 'himself', and his 'they' who had sent him over usually meant that he'd appointed himself to once again look after her, whether she needed it or not.

"Your owl came back with the message unanswered. What was I supposed to think?"

Hermione's owl, Krustus, still worked within the bounds of the wizarding world, and though she loved the animal for who he was and what he did for her, it was a depressing thought that Krustus probably had more magic in him than she did.

"I was supposed to deliver this message to you from your boss, since you never showed up for work."

"What are you talking about? I _was_ working!" she retorted, feeling her headache pound in the worst way.

"With that secret contact of yours," Ron said in a way that meant he clearly didn't approve. "I told you before, and I'm going to tell you again. I trust you with my life, you know that, but that weasel doesn't have a trustworthy bone his body."

"I wasn't _there_ ," she said forcefully. "As if it matters Ronald, that's on Wednesday. I was doing some charitable after hours inquiries. And my department doesn't assign me backup for these types of things. I'm not an Auror. This is a humanitarian cause."

"It's spy work. No sane Auror would go in without backup."

She couldn't say the name of her secret contact out loud, but that didn't mean that Ron didn't know exactly who it was. They'd argued over this too, also in the worst way. It always ended up the same. Hermione didn't have the magical means to protect herself from someone like him, but he was the only contact she had, and she wasn't going to turn down a chance to get what she needed for what she was working on.

Besides, she wasn't even with her questionable contact. She was somewhere else entirely… which she wasn't supposed to talk about… or maybe she should… She examined the man in front of her, frazzled and irritable, and decided against it. She should… but then she didn't want to deal with more of his attitude.

He'd been one of her closest friends for years, her boyfriend for a year, and her fiance for three months, but after the curse had finally developed enough to land her in St. Mungo's for six weeks, sapping the last of her magic away, she couldn't promise him the life he thought he wanted with her until she reconciled herself with the life she was now forced to live. She had to figure herself out first – and wanting to show that he was the one who understood and loved her through all her changes, Ron accepted her terms.

"Look," he was saying, "all I wanted was to know that you were alright. You didn't answer my owl yesterday, and today you didn't show up at the Ministry. Now, at least I can sleep at night."

Here he was, supporting her when she wasn't expecting it. She didn't know whether to be grateful or irritated about it. Being supportive and being suffocating were two different things, and in all the years she'd known him, Ron hadn't learned the difference.

"If we were married…" he started, but Hermione quickly cut him off.

"We're _not_ married. We're not even dating." She followed with that last bit to keep Ron from falling back on the "we could be" scenario.

She didn't want to be hurtful, but trying to reestablish her independence on a daily basis – with every little thing – was exhausting. So much of what he said to her was peppered with an overextended invitation to intrude on her life that she only had the energy to listen to half of what he ever said to her. It was why, after being released from the hospital, she hadn't taken Ron's suggestion to move in with him.

"I still want to take care of you, if you'll let me."

He went over to the couch and collapsed into it, throwing a hand over his face, looking very worn down. She had grown accustomed to seeing him like this – overwhelmed, overworked, and still willing to do whatever it took to keep her in one piece. Though the endearing qualities had worn off ages ago, part of what he did for her was still admirable. The rest of it was infuriating.

Hermione gave pause to his words, mulling them over in her mind.

"I never got the owl. When did you send it?"

Ron mumbled something into his arm which sounded like he'd sent several messages over the span of the day, but that wasn't right, because she'd been at the Ministry all day before her evening appointment, which was after hours.. She should have gotten those owls straight away, and even though their personal relationship had been thrown into the rubbish bin, she would have answered his messages straight away too, if only to prevent… _this._

She closed the door to her bedroom, thankful for the suite layout of the flat with the adjoining bathroom to the master suite. She was glad that she'd splurged on the extra amenities when she'd moved into her own place after her recent promotion.

What had happened, exactly? She wasn't too concerned that she didn't remember the details of the meeting. She usually took excellent notes, and it was usual of her not to have a total recall of the details – her fuzzy head didn't bother her either, she'd had a lot of fuzzy head moments since the dark magic had gotten into her system – she'd gotten a taxi back to the flat, right?

One thing troubling about working with different species was that they wanted you to participate in their rituals and customs. Hermione usually went to great lengths to research what was expected of her, but there just wasn't a lot of information on vampires. Their origins were steeped in mystery and legend, and their collective society was largely undocumented. Unfortunately, her decision to just go in first and ask questions later had backfired in a major way.

It was night when she'd gotten to the warehouse. It had still been dark outside when she'd gotten home.

Her stomach growled, it was uncomfortably empty, and some of the words Ron had spun around her head when she wasn't listening were starting to come back around.

What had Ron meant by 'yesterday'?

Had she been gone longer than she'd thought?

An insistent tapping brought her attention to the window where Krustus was perched on the ledge outside, letting her know of his presence. She opened the window to let him in, and he squawked at her, ruffling his feathers before hopping onto her writing desk.

For an owl, he looked exhausted. Hermione quickly untied a collection of tiny rolled up pieces of parchment from his legs. Three were from Ron, and one was from her boss.

There weren't any times listed, but all of the letters were dated for May the twenty-seventh, which, according to her schedule book, was the day of her pro-bono meeting. She set Ron's notes aside and unrolled the one from her boss, Gringus Alabastor, Head Liaison for D.I.C.R.A.C.M.C., an untidy acronym that he insisted on using in all of his correspondence. He was still sore over the Liaison title that facilitated transferring different races from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures to the Department of International Cooperation. Creating an entirely new department for this task would take twice as long as it had taken Hermione to reverse the regulation of House Elves from the Beast, Being, and Spirit Divisions and put them into mainstream Wizarding rule.

At this point in her career, progress was more important than pompous titles. Unfortunately, her boss, who still only managed to call her 'assistant', and sometimes 'the rebel within the system', tended to disagree.

Alabastor's message had warned her not to go to her pro-bono meeting that night. The note explained that 'there had been a security breach, Hermione Granger's name had come up, and would she please report in as soon as possible.'

"That explains the frazzled ex on my couch," she muttered.

Ron had just graduated from the two year Auror Training Program, and he'd been a full-fledged Auror for only a handful of days. If his ex was reported missing right after circulating a note like this, she could see why all his the alarms had gone off.

But really, it was only… Hermione glanced at the clock and squinted. Eight-forty in the evening, which couldn't be correct. Her meeting had been set for eight-thirty. It was a half hour taxi ride to the docks, and she knew she had been there for…

Still, that wouldn't have given her any time to get home.

Then there was a flash of blinding sun, and falling onto the ground… and a

long, long dreamless sleep – and finally waking again and stumbling around in the dark and finding the door… and… running…

Hermione blinked and her bedroom re-appeared before her.

Suddenly, her body felt heavy and ached all over. As she got undressed for her shower, she caught her reflection and gasped. There were scrapes and bruises all over her arms and legs, and strange markings along her neck and shoulders. Everything felt stiff, like she'd been beaten by a broom.

Under the hot water spray, she stopped trying to reason it out and just went through the motions with the soap and shampoo, and tried to rinse her concerns down the drain. Something bad had happened to her, but all she wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep. She was so very tired. It took every effort to turn off the water and get herself sorted.

It was midnight when she finally got into bed, and instead of falling asleep straight away, her mind kept drifting back to Ron.

He'd helped her every step of the way since losing her magic. But every time she looked at him, she saw someone who remembered who she used to be. There was no relief from it. She had thought that after the hospital, maybe being alone, she could find a way to reconcile herself with her lost magic.

She was so… whatever she was… _empty_ that she couldn't even cry about it.

Hermione stared at the blank ceiling. Her therapist had told her that once you put a name to your feelings, they could be analyzed, dissected, and dealt with. They became less of a scary thing hiding in the dark, and more of a tangible thing to be conquered.

She tried that, because now, of all times, she wasn't in the mood to be overcome by some nameless Boggart that plucked away at the last of her sanity. This thing that was crawling around inside of her, causing her to be restless and squirmy… needled at her, made her stomach churn and her head pound... had to stop. There was no relief from it.

She sat up in bed, finding the word for it at last.

 _Hunger._


	3. Chapter 3: The Contact

Chapter 3: The Contact

 _Don't see him, Hermione. At least don't go alone._

Ron's final words after breakfast burned through Hermione's skull as she stood in the bathroom stall, waiting for another witch, or even a wizard to come by and give her a hand.

The toilets flushed normally for her, but if she wanted to be sucked through the pipes and into the atrium that led to her office, it required a magic touch that she didn't have anymore.

 _Merlin's pants, I can't even get to work without someone helping me._

That was the price she paid, now that Ron wasn't with her every second of every day.

They'd had another argument that morning. He wouldn't let her make her own breakfast. He didn't want her to go to work. He didn't want her to meet with her contact.

"Do you want me to quit my job? Because that isn't happening!" she retorted, finally having enough.

Somehow they avoided another argument in between the breakfast dishes, Ron taking the trash to the curb and leaving to let her get to work on her own.

Independence. Space. That was what she wanted, right?

What she hadn't wanted was the extreme hangover that she'd woken up to. Hermione thought she might stop by St. Mungo's to get checked out during her lunch break, but after a kindly witch flushed her through the plumbing and she caught sight of her packed schedule, she didn't even have time for lunch. She couldn't eat anything anyway. Her stomach threatened to digest itself, but all she could bear was sipping water, and that only kept her mouth from getting unbearably dry.

"Water?"

Hermione's assistant, a stringy bloke just out of Hogwarts with sandy hair and a penchant for showing up with exactly what she needed, was decidedly not at all like Ron. Three years her junior, he had just enough experience to know how bad the war had been, but had been young enough to be sheltered from the actual battle.

He'd fought his own battles, though. As a fourth year, he'd lived through the manipulation and torture of the students during the hostile takeover. Sometimes, his eyes were still haunted, and Hermione wondered how any of them could still function on a daily basis.

"Miss Granger?" her assistant asked. "Have some more water. You look a little pale."

"I feel a little pale." Hermione had lived with her disability for long enough just to agree with people when they said things like that. It was just as pointless to deny as it was to dwell.

The pit of her stomach had expanded, and every time she approached food, the nausea kept her from filling it. When she went to sit behind her desk, the room spun a little, and she had to close her eyes for a moment.

"Do you want me to get someone?" her assistant ventured.

"No, Henry. Thanks. I've missed a day and I need to stay on schedule."

Her assistant wavered and then Hermione added, "Clear my schedule for tomorrow. I'll plan to come in late, maybe get checked out in the morning, if whatever this is doesn't pass."

That put her assistant more at ease. Hermione breathed deeply and waited for another nauseous wave to roll through her. Maybe she'd step up her visit to St. Mungo's for the afternoon. But then it'd be another battery of tests and everything under the sun to rule out that this wasn't another side effect of the dark magic before they tried other things. It could be, she reasoned, that this was just a common stomach bug – which would mean it would take care of itself and medicine and potions wouldn't help anyway – not that she could keep anything down.

But if she did go in, she'd have to explain where she'd gone and where she'd been for the missing day, and the Mediwitches would summon Ronald Weasley on her behalf, since half the staff knew her personally, and knew him even better. He'd been a sloppy patient, coming in almost bi-weekly with Harry from injuries sustained during training exercises over the last two years. He'd been at her bedside through the six weeks when her arm had swelled up with dark magic, through the useless therapies and the stumped Curse-Breakers.

All she could do was move ahead and get ready for her next appointment, which had taken weeks to set up. She wasn't going to blow the opportunity to get the files now, not since she'd expected delays and finally gotten a date and time for the exchange.

This contact had been meeting with her on a semi-regular basis, selling information about illegal substances and who dealt with them. The Ministry was interested in keeping the underground commerce scarce, and her contact was interested in maintaining a steady stream of reliable revenue. The war had ruined his family – drained their coffers with fines, payoffs, donations, and retributions. Though he was working on it, rebuilding something reputable from the rubble of his family's destroyed legacy was a slow and painful process.

Only one thing was clear. Everyone had to work within the imperfect system. Everyone had to make a living after the war.

Even Hermione Granger's best friend, savior of the wizarding world – Harry Potter – attended his Auror Training with Ron, Susan and Neville, some of her classmates who had survived and were trying to make things better, one day at a time. Ron's little sister, Ginny, was picked up by a Quidditch League and left London. Hermione had been relieved that at least someone she knew got away and was living a better life. Ron's oldest brother got a promotion from Gringotts a few weeks ago, and for the rest of them, things were going as well as could be expected.

After achieving House Elf rights, Hermione had tackled the sticky situation for werewolves. After that, she tried to work with the Centaurs, but Firenze wouldn't return her messages. So when her therapist suggested another marginalized group, Hermione simply went with it.

She was busy. She was important. She was doing her part – in spite of her weakness, in spite of losing the thing that made her belong to this community – she'd fought for them and would continue to fight for them.

She'd been doing it for so long that she didn't know how to do anything else.

She sipped another bit of water, noticing that Henry had added a spritz of lemon in it. That was alright. She could handle the lemon, even if Potions might make her vomit, and she needed to keep her wits for this meeting, if only on the outside while her insides were betraying her.

When she stepped inside the pub, her senses were assaulted by stale ale and aged cheese. At least the lights were low, which helped a little. She picked her way past seedy-looking patrons until she got to the back table with a lone occupant. Ron could go piss himself if he threw another fit about her coming here. She was sick of being told what she couldn't do.

Besides, this wizard was on the Ministry's payroll. He had no reason to hurt her and every reason to give her what she wanted.

She sat down, swallowing her gag reflex. "Malfoy," she said.

"Granger," he said. He cocked his head to one side, in that signature stuck-up aristocratic way. "You look like dragon dung on a hot day."

Hermione didn't fall into their usual exchange of insults. When she needed something, it wasn't a good idea to make her contact's life miserable.

Coincidentally, she'd been given a line on a small, rogue group of vampires who were staking out a small territory in London. Normally, the Ministry wouldn't get involved, but this particular group had stolen something that the Ministry wanted returned. Draco Malfoy dealt with many things, including keeping his ear to the ground for whispers of dealings the Ministry could only hope to discover.

With her added interest in vampires as a potential species to be considered for rights within the Wizarding community, Hermione had a vested interest in what this group wanted and whether their desires could be handled – _discreetly_ – in order to give them a chance to be taken seriously.

With her own experience under her belt, the missing day and the way her body felt, she was aware the meeting hadn't gone well, but she knew that fringe groups had their own way of testing the loyalty of their messenger. The pixies, for example, had changed her hair to straw for two weeks.

She was going to give them a chance, and find out as much as she could, while at the same time, performing her Ministry-assigned duties. But she wasn't feeling so good. In fact, things were getting worse for her the longer she sat in the booth, surrounded by beer and cigars.

This was a dangerous bar with even more dangerous people in it. She knew what she was getting into, or at least she thought she did. She had to get out fast, before her vulnerability showed through.

"The packet, Malfoy."

Draco furrowed his brows and didn't move. "Seriously, you look unwell."

Hermione's nerves were frayed. She just needed to get the packet, get home, owl it to her Ministry contact and go to sleep. A long sleep. Draco Malfoy's face blurred before her, and the world tilted dangerously.

"Just give me the…"

"No," he said, grabbing her wrist that she'd carelessly left within reach. "You know what kind of game we're playing here. If you drop dead in this pub, I'm as good as dead too."

Hermione knew exactly what Draco had locked away, which was why he made such a good contact for the Ministry who was still tracking down the rest of the Death Eaters. "What makes you think that I'd willingly take one of your illegal potions, Malfoy?"

"Because you're whiter than a banshee and your pulse barely registers." He held up her wrist. "I've seen this before. Let me help you."

Hermione gasped as she was yanked to her feet. Draco snaked an arm around her waist to keep her upright. Then they were moving through the shadows. She'd always resisted coming back here. The Ministry paid him for information only. She didn't need to know anything else incriminating about him.

Yet, here she was, leaning on him for support, being dragged down a long, dark hallway, and into a plush sitting room. Draco stood above her and thrust a clear plastic bag with a dark, viscous substance into her hands.

"Drink."


End file.
